{"id":4989,"date":"2025-08-16T00:21:55","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T00:21:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/sam-altman-over-bread-rolls-explores-life-after-gpt-5\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T00:21:55","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T00:21:55","slug":"sam-altman-over-bread-rolls-explores-life-after-gpt-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/sam-altman-over-bread-rolls-explores-life-after-gpt-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Altman, over bread rolls, explores life after GPT-5"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&rsquo;m looking out at Alcatraz Island from a Mediterranean restaurant in San Francisco with hundred-dollar fish entr&eacute;es on the menu. As I make small talk with other reporters, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman jumps through the door on my left. Altman&rsquo;s looking down at his bare iPhone to show us all something, and an intrusive thought slips out of my mouth: &ldquo;No phone case is a bold choice.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Of course, I immediately realize that the billionaire CEO of OpenAI, who employs Apple veteran Jony Ive, cares more about preserving the iPhone&rsquo;s original design than the $1,000 it costs to replace one.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&ldquo;Listen, we&rsquo;re going to ship a device that is going to be so beautiful,&rdquo; said Altman, referring to OpenAI and Ive&rsquo;s forthcoming AI device. &ldquo;If you put a case over it, I will personally hunt you down,&rdquo; he joked.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Altman had gathered roughly a dozen tech reporters to join him and other OpenAI executives for an on-the-record dinner (and off-the-record dessert). The night raised more questions than it answered.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For instance, why is Nick Turley, the VP of ChatGPT, kindly passing me a lamb skewer just a week after launching GPT-5? Was this to make me write nice things about OpenAI&rsquo;s biggest AI model launch yet, which was relatively disappointing given the years of hype around it?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Unlike GPT-4, which far outpaced rivals and challenged expectations of what AI can do, GPT-5 performs roughly on par with models from Google and Anthropic. OpenAI even brought back GPT-4o and ChatGPT&rsquo;s model picker, after several users expressed concerns over GPT-5&rsquo;s tone and its model router.<\/p>\n<div class=\"internal-linking-related-contents\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/12-weeks-jail-for-school-it-support-technician-who-took-upskirt-videos-of-teachers\/\" class=\"template-1\"><span class=\"cta\">News :<\/span><span class=\"postTitle\">&lt;div&gt;12 weeks' jail for school IT support technician who took upskirt videos of teachers&lt;\/div&gt;<\/span><\/a><\/div><p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But throughout the night, it became clear to me that this dinner was about OpenAI&rsquo;s future beyond GPT-5. OpenAI&rsquo;s executives gave the impression that AI model launches are less important than they were when GPT-4 launched in 2023. After all, OpenAI is a very different company now, focused on upending legacy players in search, consumer hardware, and enterprise software.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-techcrunch-inline-cta\">\n<div class=\"inline-cta__wrapper\" readability=\"5.3\">\n<p>Techcrunch event<\/p>\n<div class=\"inline-cta__content\" readability=\"24.75\">\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__location\">San Francisco<\/span><br>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__separator\">|<\/span><br>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__date\">October 27-29, 2025<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">OpenAI shared some new details about those efforts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Altman said OpenAI&rsquo;s incoming CEO of applications, Fidji Simo, would oversee multiple consumer apps outside of ChatGPT &mdash; ones OpenAI has yet to launch. Simo is slated to start work at OpenAI in just a few weeks, and she might end up overseeing the launch of an AI-powered browser that OpenAI is reportedly developing to compete with Chrome.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Altman suggested OpenAI would even consider buying Chrome &mdash; likely an offer that would be taken more seriously than Perplexity&rsquo;s bid &mdash; should it become available. &ldquo;If Chrome is really going to sell, we should take a look at it,&rdquo; he said before looking at all of us and asking: &ldquo;Is it actually going to sell? I assumed it wasn&rsquo;t gonna happen.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<div class=\"internal-linking-related-contents\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/migrant-acquitted-in-first-trial-over-us-border-military-zones\/\" class=\"template-1\"><span class=\"cta\">News :<\/span><span class=\"postTitle\">Migrant acquitted in first trial over US border military zones<\/span><\/a><\/div><p>Simo also might end up running an AI-powered social media app &mdash; something the OpenAI CEO said he&rsquo;s interested in exploring. In fact, Altman said there&rsquo;s &ldquo;nothing&rdquo; inspiring to him about the way AI is used on social media today, adding that he&rsquo;s interested in &ldquo;whether or not it is possible to build a much cooler kind of social experience with AI.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While Turley and Brad Lightcap, OpenAI&rsquo;s COO, largely gave the floor to Altman, drinking wine alongside the other seated guests, Altman also confirmed reports that OpenAI plans to back a brain-computer interface startup, Merge Labs, to compete with Elon Musk&rsquo;s Neuralink. (&ldquo;We have not done that deal yet; I would like us to.&rdquo;) <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How intertwined that company will be with OpenAI&rsquo;s models and devices remains to be seen. Altman described it only as a &ldquo;a company that we&rsquo;d invest in.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For all the talk of browsers and brain chips, though, the elephant in the room remained GPT-5&rsquo;s rough reception. Eventually, the conversation circled back to the model that had prompted our group dinner in the first place.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Turley and Altman say they&rsquo;ve learned a lot from the experience.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&ldquo;I legitimately just thought we screwed that up,&rdquo; said Altman on deprecating GPT-4o without telling users. Altman said OpenAI will give users a more clear &ldquo;transition period&rdquo; when deprecating AI models in the future.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Turley also said OpenAI is already rolling out a new update to make GPT-5&rsquo;s responses &ldquo;warmer,&rdquo; but not sycophantic, such that it won&rsquo;t reinforce negative behaviors in users.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&ldquo;GPT-5 was just very to the point. I like that. I use the robot personality &mdash; I&rsquo;m German, you know, whatever,&rdquo; said Turley. &ldquo;But many people do not, and they really like the fact that ChatGPT would actually check in with you.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&rsquo;s a delicate balance for OpenAI to strike, especially given that some users have developed dependencies on ChatGPT. Altman said OpenAI believes that less than 1% of ChatGPT users have unhealthy relationships &mdash; which could still be tens of millions of people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Turley said OpenAI worked with mental health experts to develop a rubric to evaluate GPT-5&rsquo;s answers, ensuring that the AI model will push back on unhealthy behaviors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That said, it seems that GPT-5 hasn&rsquo;t hurt OpenAI&rsquo;s business. In fact, Altman said OpenAI&rsquo;s API traffic doubled within 48 hours of GPT-5&rsquo;s launch, and the company is effectively &ldquo;out of GPUs&rdquo; thanks to all the demand.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In many ways, the night&rsquo;s contradictions &mdash; disappointing launches, record-breaking usage &mdash; reflected OpenAI&rsquo;s strange reality right now.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Given OpenAI&rsquo;s bets on browsers, brain chips, AI chatbots &mdash; and others the company is making around data centers, robotics, and energy &mdash; Altman clearly has ambitions of running a much bigger company than just the ChatGPT maker. The final form could look something like Google&rsquo;s parent Alphabet, but perhaps even broader.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As the night wound down, it became clear we weren&rsquo;t gathered to reflect on GPT-5 at all. We were being pitched on a company that&rsquo;s eager to outgrow its famous and controversial product. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It seems likely that OpenAI will go public to meet its massive capital demands as part of that picture. In preparation, I think Altman wants to hone his relationship with the media. But he also wants OpenAI to get to a place where it&rsquo;s no longer defined by its best AI model.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><sub>Sam Altman, over bread rolls, explores life after GPT-5<\/sub><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&rsquo;m looking out at Alcatraz Island from a Mediterranean restaurant in San Francisco with hundred-dollar fish entr&eacute;es on the menu. As I make small talk with other reporters, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman jumps through the door on my left. Altman&rsquo;s looking down at his bare iPhone to show us all something, and an intrusive thought&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-wrap\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/sam-altman-over-bread-rolls-explores-life-after-gpt-5\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;Sam Altman, over bread rolls, explores life after GPT-5&rdquo;<\/span> &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4990,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}